


ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind

by Wolvesandwerewolves



Series: I’m With You in Rockland [13]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Nightmares, Schizophrenia, Schizophrenia/Schizoaffective Disorder, mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:41:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26059672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolvesandwerewolves/pseuds/Wolvesandwerewolves
Summary: It’s December, close to Christmas, now. Ben sits on the porch with Klaus and feels introspective.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves
Series: I’m With You in Rockland [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1865728
Comments: 11
Kudos: 98





	ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind

**Author's Note:**

> yknow i began this one with the intention of reuniting ben and diego again, and maybe even letting vanya discover her powers and have the loving (and awkward in diego’s case) support of her brothers 
> 
> buuutttt then i wrote this instead! maybe someday, vanya...i love you

It’s December. 

There’s a fresh blanket of snow outside, soaked into the wood of the deck and scraped away. Klaus sits next to him on one of the wicker rocking chairs, feet pulled up and resting on the edge. He’s wearing thick pajama pants, with an old sweatshirt, hood pulled up, and he has the blue blanket wrapped around his shoulders, too. He’s wearing socks this morning, an old mismatched pair from the hospital, but no shoes. Still, it must be cold. Ben can see his brother’s breath in the air, swirling around and dissipating sooner than the smoke it mingles with. His fingers, poking out from his fingerless gloves and wrapped loosely around the cigarette, are red in the dim orange porch light, almost drowned out by the blinking morning.

It’s quiet. Early enough for the sun to still be sleeping, but there’s just barely a hint of light beyond the trees, soft and grey. Klaus hums softly, a song he doesn’t recognize even if it sounds familiar. He thinks it’s probably something Vanya has played recently. It lingers at the back of his mind, wanting to be remembered, but Ben is distracted this morning. He doesn’t care to think on the soothing melody. 

It’s almost Christmas. Vanya is on winter break, until a week after New Year’s. When she first suggested coming here, Klaus had clapped and spun her around, hyper and giddy like a little kid. _I’ve never gone on a vacation before_ , he’d said.

Ben never had, either. None of them had, really, unless they can count missions out of state or country. But even when they’d been to Paris, it was never overnight, and the only tourist-y thing they had done was celebrate with ice cream afterwards. Even then, it was only Luther, Diego, Alison and Five. Klaus and Vanya hadn’t come. 

And it’s not really a vacation, now, either, but it almost could be. The first day here Klaus was so excited and almost fascinated with everything around them. He’d taken over the bedroom quickly, put all of his clothes in the drawers, set out his pills and cigarettes on the nightstand. He’d even brought a book, for Ben— _Journey to the Center of the Earth_ , something he hasn’t read since he was a child—and it rests next to his lighter, earmarked on chapter two. 

He’d almost caught the place ablaze that night, too, trying to figure out how the fireplace worked. It didn’t seem to do anything but spur him on, probably because Klaus has a tendency to be a pyro, sometimes, and he laughed at himself with easy excitement. 

Ben is close to excited, too, even though he thinks he maybe shouldn’t be. And maybe he isn’t, even. He’s at war with himself, unsure of how to feel. 

He’s been dead for an entire year, now. The anniversary of his funeral was just last week. The date had passed by insignificantly, just like his death date had. Nothing changed, and he wasn’t even sure why he expected anything to. Klaus had offered to leave flowers at his grave, but Ben told him not to. The thought felt too weird to him, slithering in his stomach like the Horror, crawling up his spine like an uncomfortable spider. 

Sometimes, when he’s with Klaus, he doesn’t even feel dead. And sometimes he feels more like a ghost than a person.

He thinks he feels almost like that, today. 

They never really celebrated Christmas as children. Or any of the holidays, really. But he thinks maybe it was Alison who started the tradition, before she had moved out. And then even after she left, he and Diego mostly celebrated together. The year before he died, he spent the night at his brother’s cheap, old apartment. They’d exchanged gifts, tried to cook together and ended up ordering Chinese instead. They’d gotten drunk on an old stolen bottle of his father’s whiskey. It tasted terrible, and the hangover the next day was a monster. 

But he remembers the days with rose-tinted glasses. He thinks they probably would have spent that Christmas the same way. Maybe this Christmas, too. The day before he died, he’d bought Diego a new set of sharp, weighted knives. He’d stored them in his bedroom, hadn’t even wrapped them, yet. 

This year, Klaus and Vanya had bought an identical set, wrote his name on the wrapping and set it under the tree with the few other gifts setting there. 

Klaus yawns next to him. He presses the bud of the cigarette to the glass ashtray on the table setting in between them, a tiny graveyard of used up sticks of nicotine and ash, ghosts of smoke rising up and fading away. He doesn’t smoke as much, since they left the hospital. But he still has maybe one every night. 

More if he has nightmares. 

It was the same one, tonight. The one he always has. It woke him, too slowly, and then suddenly at four am. He’d sat up, gasping, swallowing a cut-off whimper that made him sound young and scared.

Ben is afraid to ask him about it. He needs to know as much as he doesn’t want to. But he thinks Klaus is close to telling him. Sometimes, he’ll take a breath, as if he’s about to say something, and then he’ll make an offhand comment, instead. 

Today, he says, “Diego should be here today.”

Ben shifts in his seat. His brother coming to stay at the cabin with them is part of what makes this trip exciting. Most of what does, if he’s being honest with himself. He loves Klaus and Vanya, and often wishes he could have been there for them when they were all so small and needed it, maybe even more than now—but he misses Diego so much. He has only seen him a few times since Halloween. Every time he does, and Klaus interprets for him, it seems to drive home that Diego probably won’t ever see him again, and that hurt is only comforted with the aftertaste of being known, now. 

“I know,” Ben says. He glances over at Klaus, studies his red cheeks and the way his breath crystallizes in the air. He used to hate the cold, but now that he can’t feel it, he misses the way it stung his lungs inside, how it would stiffen the bones of his fingers like hard ice.

“Do you think he’d teach me to throw knives if I asked him?”

Ben snorts. He shakes his head. He doesn’t know where Klaus gets these ideas. 

“Probably not. He might teach Vanya, though.”

Klaus sniffs, feigning insult and setting a hand against his chest. “Ouch. At least Vanya will teach me, afterwards.”

“No, she won’t,” Ben says. Maybe she would.

He hums. Shrugs the blanket closer to his neck. “I wonder what her powers are.”

Ben does, too. He’s worried for her. And he’s proud and excited for her, too.

She’s been off the pills for two whole days, now. So far, nothing obvious has happened. She seems as relieved as she does disappointed. 

“I don’t know. That’s why we’re here.”

Ben thinks even if she is ordinary, that’s okay. She doesn’t have to be anything. None of them are their father. 

“I hope she can fly,” Klaus says. He sways his hand up and down in front of his face, mimicking a plane. “That would be really cool.”

“Unless she also has super strength, you’d be stuck on the ground with me.”

“Oh yeah,” Klaus says, behind a yawn. 

Ben yawns back, mostly habit by now. “Are we going back to bed?”

Klaus sniffs again. “I thought you liked my company.”

“I have to emotionally prepare myself each time we hang out,” Ben jokes. 

Klaus laughs, and it turns into a cough in the cold. He rolls his eyes, but he untucks his knees from his chest and stretches as he yawns. 

“Is that spider really there?”

Ben follows his gaze up, to the corner of the porch roof. There’s a small web illuminated with tiny ice crystals that reflect silver and blue, like the natural glitter of the fresh snow on the grass. 

“I see a web, but no spider from here. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one.” He frowns, lets his eyes wander around the white-cloaked Evergreen trees of the sleepy forest as he thinks. “Did you know an eleven year old girl suggested the name for Pluto?”

“Don’t think so,” Klaus says, pushing the hood of his sweatshirt back. He turns back towards the cabin, opens the door and lets Ben in first, like he always does. “I want to name a planet.”

“After yourself?”

“Maybe I’ll name the moon,” Klaus whispers, instead of answering him. The floors of the old cottage they’re staying in creak and moan beneath his feet. “Does the moon have a name?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s named Luna.”

Klaus flips on the bed, arms and legs wide like starfish. The blanket is trapped beneath him. He raises his eyebrows. 

“Let’s name it Verne.” He points to the book on the nightstand.

Ben rolls his eyes. “You’re pronouncing it wrong, but I’ll let it slide.” He yawns again. 

Klaus scowls at him but yawns back, anyway. He rolls over to his side, dragging the blanket with him and picks it up, flipping it open to the page they’d ended on last night. 

Ben rolls his eyes. Maybe Klaus isn’t ready to go back to sleep, yet. Maybe they’ll stay up until seven, and he’ll take his pills and have breakfast with Vanya. 

Ben sits on the bed next to him and reads over his shoulder. 

**Author's Note:**

> ill look up the moons name tomorrow but rn it is bedtime fam. nighty night, title by Howl, you know the drill, 
> 
> xoxo
> 
> Edit: omg of course it’s Luna...idk how I forgot that i literally have a cat named luna...see this is what we get when i take sleeping pills and write stuff at 2 am. ok wow this is embarrassing ok bye
> 
> Edit again: yeah i couldn’t stand it and changed it lmao sorry to my early peeps who read the version where i didn’t know the moon’s name :/ lol yikes ur lifesavers


End file.
